HONORABLE MENTION, Spring 2026
The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award

BY ALEXANDER WEINSTEIN

 

Friday Evening

We’ve arrived—eight hours of train travel and the children are sick. Maaare’s in good spirits though; it’s been forever since we had a vacation. Last summer we got away for a weekend to see the lava pits, but this is far more romantic: Stone houses with shutters, cobblestones, the sounds of street musicians. Granted we’re with the children, not like the lava pits where Maaare and I could tear at each other as soon as we shut the hotel door, but we figured it would be nice to have time off with the children. Good in theory. Before we left home, they were already fighting. Bwargh bit off a chunk of Ltch’s ear and I pinned him to the floor with my claws as Maaare scolded him, her tongue dripping fire.

“Now your sister will have a piece missing,” she yelled, and Bwargh spit the bloody lobe onto the kitchen tiles. Ltch, it turns out, started the fight by yanking out a tuft of hair from his back. We found the orange fur when she opened her paw. I told the kids if they fought again they’d spend the week with the wolves. We bandaged Ltch’s ear and she sulked. She’d parted her facial hair to both sides and put bows by her cheeks; the bandages ruin the effect.

After their scolding, the children behaved but Ltch looked pale and coughed during the train ride; Bwargh listened to his headphones. All long day long we passed through stretches of farmland where tall, thin monsters harvested gourds and scorched the earth with controlled burns. Across from us, an old woman with wrinkled tentacles kept puckering her suction cups and looking at the kids. I raised my claws and waved, but she simply grimaced.

We didn’t think much of Ltch’s cough, but by the time we settled in, it was a full-blown cold and both were weary, eyes bloodshot, their fur damp, their noses running green, so we set them up in the second bedroom, turned on the television, and they fell asleep.

As for the hotel room, it’s nice enough: central living room and two bedrooms with peeling wallpaper, scratch marks along the door, the scent of burnt hair.  No use exploring the city tonight—not with the kids feeling this bad. I ordered room service, and kids managed to eat a little bit of meat but mostly wanted to sleep. Maaare was good with them, licked their fur as they rested and spat their sweat into a bath towel. After we closed their door, I hoped Maaare and I would make love, but she was tired. I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “Come here,” she said. We closed our bedroom door, and she reached beneath my fur with her paws, gripped my horns, stroked until they glowed hot.

Now she’s asleep and I’m sitting up writing. Our therapist urged me to feel things more and rampage less. Outside, the sound of rain on the cobblestones, gloomy streets, the hotel room humid and stuffy even with the windows open. Along the avenue, a couple of night owls slither past, drunk and in love; above, the stars blink awake.

Saturday Morning

Ltch’s coughing wakes us at dawn, and in the stuffy room Bwargh needs to vomit. His forehead is hot, fur damp. Neither of them wants breakfast, so Maaare and I take turns at the buffet downstairs. I had envisioned us sitting together, me leisurely reading the paper while Maaare circled activities from our guidebook. Instead, Maaare rushes through the buffet and I watch the children, then she comes up and lets me have my turn.

Being stuck inside is no good. Kids are ill, coughing up purplish wads of phlegm. Maaare and I fight over going to a museum. “You go,” I say, “I’ll stay with the kids.”

“No, you go,” Maaare tells me, though she’s the one who loves museums. Kids cough up phlegm while watching a stupid TV show with dancing slugs and a huge blue squid that pulls his eyeballs out and keeps saying Ayoosh!

By noon, Maaare and I are at each other’s throats, biting and pulling hair. Maaare scorches my fur with her breath, then locks herself in our bedroom and gnashes at the sheets. I claw up the living room wallpaper. Totally miserable. The weather’s not helping, kids’ colds aren’t helping, Maaare shutting me out of the bedroom isn’t helping. Everything’s just like home: Maaare and I taking shifts with the kids and relieving one another from duty instead of enjoying time together. We’re supposed to be on a romantic vacation, and what do we do? Take alone time, swap kid duties, let the other one explore town.

“You go,” Maaare says, her tongue dripping fire.

“Fine,” I say and leave, the children deep in feverish dreams.

Outside, the rain has slowed to a drizzle, and the streets are wet with the slither of pedestrians. Not many tourists I notice. I’m the only one with fur and I’m larger than the locals—slimy monsters who leave trails on the wet cobblestones. I feel like an idiot trying to say hello. I’m no good at the language, a lot of hacking and schlurping, near impossible to pronounce.

A few avenues from the hotel I find a local market, full of old monsters filling their tentacles with bags of kittens and body parts. There’s a gruff, squid-like creature hawking vulture’s wings, and a stall with humans, their freshly smoked bodies hanging from the awning. I pay for half a pound of meat, count out the foreign coins like a child, and the butcher cuts me thigh slices and wraps them in brown paper. At another stall I buy black bread and locust jelly for Maaare and the children. There are fried cat tails with cinnamon sugar, but I decide to wait—will bring the family here once they feel up to it. I get a bag of caramelized kitten eyes instead and a bouquet of nettles for Maaare.

When I get back to the room, the kids are awake. They’re happy for the eyes, which they roll along the sheets like marbles before devouring. Maaare’s thankful for the thistles. She kisses me, nibbles my ear, whispers that she’s sorry for singeing my fur. I make us sandwiches with thigh meat and locust jelly, and Maaare spreads out an assortment of nuts and dried apricots, shriveled and thick as children’s thumbs. Feels like our first moment of togetherness since we’ve arrived. Outside it begins to rain.

Saturday, Night

Evening arrives. Kids coughing and feverish but able to get out of bed to play card games. I show them tricks with the foreign deck of cards I find in the dresser. Here is the Prince of Crows, put your finger on its back. You sure you know what card it was? Yes, Papa. Turn it over. Squeals when they see it’s the Queen of Swine. We practice a couple basic words, all of us learning together. Thank you. Xchlltz. Where is the bathroom? Chltzoo qllto? Goodbye. Pthchot. For dinner, we order room service, and the kids pick at their food. We agree that tomorrow we’ll venture out, even just a couple blocks. It’s far too depressing to spend our whole vacation inside.

After the children are asleep, Maaare and I lick each other’s fur in apology then ravage one another. She caresses my horns until they’re glowing and I turn her onto her belly and stroke her shoulders until the prickly cilia of her back open. We cling to one another, our fur soaked with sweat. Afterwards, Maaare tells me about the museum she’s found in the guidebook. We both hope the kids will feel good enough to go. We cozy up against each other, and soon Maaare’s snoring.

As for me, I’m still up and writing. Can’t sleep. I should be happy. Maare and I just had sex, we love our kids, we’re on vacation. Maybe it’s the awful weather or the sick kids. I don’t know. Why am I always so down? I’ve got a good job at the bottling plant, I throw a party for the guys in the fall, get a couple humans, do an open pit roast, but recently I’ve been wondering what’s the point? Why can’t I be happy like Hummlich, who’s single and on every dating app out there. He shows us pictures of young suction cups, a shot of some girl’s tail in full spike, tentacles dripping—makes us married guys grumble. I drive home and pass the same hairy woman on a billboard who’s holding a bottle of shampoo, the outlines of her shoulder blades beneath the fur ready for the parting, and I want to cry. I know other monster couples have fun romping through brambled forests and picking burrs from each other’s backs. They pose stupidly for photos, stick their paws in the air, and dance to old fur-bands from two decades ago. This morning I looked at Maaare as she chewed through the sautéed knuckles from the buffet, and thought: I should just be happy. Instead, all I feel is this hollow emptiness.

Maaare doesn’t have this problem. Day in, day out, she works with at-risk monsters. They set fire to the classroom, rampage the cafeteria, eat her posters. She ought to be depressed, but she leaves work and goes to the market, picks up a bottle of wine and marinated slugs, comes home with treats for the kids. She enjoys stupid rom-com flicks where some giant monster meets a medusa beneath the bridge and they set fire to the town together. At night, Maaare closes her eyes and sleeps easily. Me, I stay awake, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. Writing isn’t helping. I’m going back to bed to try and sleep. Here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Sunday, First Family Outing

Kids on the mend, thank God. We were able to bring them food from the buffet and they took showers. Said they felt good enough to go out, so we agreed to see the museum Maaare’s been wanting to visit. Lots of old paintings of famous monster battles from five centuries ago. A gallery of black and white photos of young women with their tentacles draped over sea rocks. Some good sculptures in the modern section—one with wild horns jutting out of a furry metal box, nearly obscene. The children pointed at the horns and laughed. We had a nice lunch in the museum’s café; overpriced but the kids liked the lady fingers. Later we went looking for fried cat tails but I couldn’t find the market.

“Come on, let’s just go back to the hotel,” Maaare said.

Finally found the square, but no market today. Kids looking pale again, rain starting up, Maaare annoyed at me for not just going home. We returned to the hotel, ordered in room service, watched an action film about a monster fighting an army singlehandedly.

After the movie, I told Maaare about how depressed I’ve been feeling.

“It hasn’t been an easy vacation,” she admitted and rubbed my fur. “We’ll make the most of tomorrow.”

“It’s our last day,” I said morosely.

“I know; I love you,” she said and curled her tongue around my neck.

“I love you, too,” I said and wrapped my tail around her.

Monday, Last Day

An excellent morning! The children felt much better, voices raspy but coughs have subsided, and they felt good enough to go to the buffet. I had my coffee while flipping through the local paper. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it but was nice to be relaxing together. Spoke to hotel manager about sightseeing. He suggested a local beach, said there was an excellent restaurant for drinks and dinner there. Kids got excited about the plan, so Maaare packed towels for us, water, swimsuits. We followed the directions and took the bus. Sat across from a bunch of workers heading home from nightshifts, all of them looking tired as they hung onto the overhead bar with their tentacles. Realized I go back to the bottling plant on Wednesday.

Soon this vacation will be over; back home we go and it all starts up again: Work, dinners, driving the kids to their afterschool rampages. Maaare nudged me and nodded toward young lovers nuzzling on the bus. “Last night was nice,” she whispered into my ear and I could feel the warmth of her tongue.

At the beach, the kids played in the ocean while we relaxed. I managed to snooze a bit as Maaare wrote postcards. The children found a human head rolling in the surf and they improvised a soccer game with some local kids, kicking the sandy head back and forth as they ran up and down the beach. Nice to watch how easily they get along even without speaking the language. Made a mental note to allow more play in my life rather than always thinking dark thoughts. Reached out and stroked Maaare’s furry leg and listened to the waves crashing. Maaare told me she wants to get back to painting (canvas/watercolors—birthday present?)  Kids came back and wanted me to play with them, so I got up and dived into the water after them, pretending to be a spear fisherman, all of us happy.

Later we found the café that the hotel manager recommended. Real local place with outdoor seating and a big grill where the owner was roasting fresh human over the coals—the scent of seared skin and caramelizing sugar delicious. Kids got to drink sodas and Maaare and I had pheromone cocktails. The owner brought out small bowls of tapas—little anchovy-like creatures with tiny eyes all over their bodies and a spicy aioli. Having never seen sizzle sardines, the children picked one up and wiggled its tiny arm-like appendages. Hello, nice to meet you, Ltch said, putting the small hand on the pad of her pinky before biting off its head. Strange creatures. You can see the tiny bones through the flesh. Their back fins split into a pair of legs. Here’s where the knee joints form and there the ankle bones. Even the fish’s faces seem human, their small lips spread open, their black eyes staring at everything in fear. It’s no wonder they tell tales of tiny men living along this coast. Bwargh made the small sizzle sardine dance on his bread, spreading out its two arms as though it was putting on a vaudeville show.

Sun-warmed and sandy, I thought: Well, if this is all there is—this moment with the children playing with their sizzle-sardines and Maaare leaning her head against my shoulder, the sky turning pink, and the smell of roasted human in the air—maybe that’s plenty. There’s the sea, and my family with our daily troubles and joys, and these little fried creatures whose tiny eyes crunch against my tongue.

The owner came over and placed a plate of basted ribs on our table. Tkutch, Tkutch, he said, and offered to take our photo. We gave him our camera, and he backed up to get a good shot. Even before he showed it to me, and I saw our happy family together, I knew it would be a picture I’ll frame and put on my desk at the bottling plant. A memory of us together in joy.

Okay—he said—one more.

So, I leaned in around the table, felt the children on my one side, Maaare on my other, all of us fur-sandy and warm. Then I opened my mouth, showed my teeth. Smiled.

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